Dr. Atilla Karaman is the Acting Director of the Statistics and Information Department of the Statistical, Economic and Social Research and Training Centre for Islamic Countries (SESRIC), a subsidiary organ of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), as of 10 July 2018. He received his BA in Banking and Finance from Bilkent University, Ankara-Turkey in 2001, his MBA in Financial Management from Hochschule Coburg, Germany in 2004 and his PhD in Operations Research from the Defence Sciences Institute of Turkish Military Academy, Ankara-Turkey with his dissertation titled "Base Reference Fuzzy Alpha Discounting Method and an Empirical Application" in 2015. He joined the SESRIC in April 2007 after working in the management consultancy, finance, audit, and economic research sectors in Turkey and Germany. Directly reporting to the Director General of SESRIC about the activities of the two units (Data and Information Management Unit and Statistical Outreach and Project Unit) under the responsibility of Statistics and Information Department of SESRIC concerning the planning and impementation of the Statistical Capacity Building (StatCaB) Programme and managerial and strategic issues of official statistics including Sustainable Development Goals at the OIC level, Dr. Karaman also has active research on statistical capacity and multi-criteria decision making.